The Nuclear Olympics and Tokyo's Upcoming Election . . .

[Oscar]

The Nuclear Olympics: Crisis and Opportunity in Tokyo’s Upcoming Election

----- Original Message -----
From: Gordon Edwards
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 1:06 AM
Subject: The Nuclear Olympics: Crisis and Opportunity in Tokyo’s Upcoming Election

Background: January 23, 2013

Prime Minister Abe of Japan has assured the International Olympic Committee that the situation at Fukushima Daiichi is well in hand, and that Tokyo will be a perfectly safe locale for the Summer Games of 2020 because none of the radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster will pose any danger to the athletes or to those who visit the Tokyo Olympics from abroad.

We would all like to be able to assure ourselves that this is so. However, the pattern of misinformation and secrecy, not to mention the msmanagement that has characterized the handling of the perilous situation at Fukushima does not lend confidence to Prime Minister Abe's assertion -- particularly in light of reportsthat poorly trained and badly motivated workers are being recruited in large numbers by criminal elements to work on the Fukushima cleanup operations.

Radioactive pollutants dispersed far and wide during the early weeks of the still-unfolding disaster have contaminated soils and structures far from the reactor site. These cancer-causing contaminants have entered the food chain and have become an integral part of the Japanese environment. Soil samples taken in Tokyo have been analyzed in the USA and found to be so radioactive that those samples would have to be classed as radioactive waste and stored in a specialized facility for that purpose according to existing US regulations. Contaminated materials are also being incinerated at many locations in Japan and much of the resulting contaminated ash is being dumped into Tokyo harbor. Most of the harmful health effects from breathing or ingesting such radioactive material will not be manifested for several years or decades after the exposure has occurred.

The irradiated nuclear fuel in the three molten cores from Units 1, 2 and 3, is regularly contaminating groundwater flowing beneath the reactor buildings. That contaminated groundwater has been flowing into the sea at the rate of 300 tonnes per day. Efforts to stop this flow using subterranean chemical walls have failed because the contaminated groundwater builds up behind those walls and then overtops them. Plans to spend more than a billion dollars to build an enormous subterranean "ice wall" around the entire nuclear complex are of dubious effectiveness and will not be completed for at least two years under the best of circumstances.

Meanwhile, TEPCO is pumping 400 tonnes of fresh water every day down into the containment structures -- where the molten cores are still generating heat as a result of the intense radioactivity of the nuclear wastes. This so-called "decay heat" is what caused the meltdowns in the first place, and it cannot be stopped because no one knows how to shut off radioactivity. When the cooling water (400 tonnes) is pumped back up to the surface each day, it has become so heavily contaminated with radioactive pollutants that it cannot be released -- so TEPCO has built more than 1000 huge tanks, each two or three stories high, to contain this ever-growing inventory of super-contaminated water, and they are building more tanks all the time. The water that sometimes leaks from these tanks is so radioactive that a puddle can deliver as much radiation exposure in one hour to a person two feet away, as the radiation exposure that an atomic worker would get in five years if he/she were exposed to the maximum permissible level during that entire period.

Inside the badly damaged reactor buildings of Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 (especially the latter two) there is a water-filled pool containing irradiated nuclear fuel assemblies from years gone by, at an elevation five stories above the ground. These "spent fuel pools" are not provided with an elaborate containment system as the fuel in the reactor core is, so any serious damage to the fuel in the pool can lead to further atmospheric releases of radioactive pollutants. These releases could, under the worst circumstances, be far worse than the original releases from the 2011 nuclear disaster, For example, the irradiated fuel in the pool at Unit 4 contains about 80 times as much radioactive cesium (cesium-137) as the amount that was released by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine 28 years ago. And, by the way, about half of the radioactive cesium released from the Chernobyl reactor in 1986 is still in the environment, much of it within the first 3 cm of topsoil.

Given the contamination that has already occurred, even in Tokyo; given the fact the this contamination is being transported by birds, animals, insects, fish, and humans, as well as by wind and rain and other natural forces, and given that foodstuffs have been contaminated to varying degrees by radioactive fallout from Chernobyl, it would seem prudent to have a team of biomedical investigators -- with no links to the nuclear
power industry or to the nuclear regulatory agencies, who are in fact a part of the nuclear establishment -- to conduct an independent assessment of the potential health risks to athletes and to visitors from around the world who plan to come to Tokyo for the 2020 Summer Games. Such an assessment must take into account the precarious situation at Fukushima, recognizing that there is still an enormous potential for further major releases of radioactive materials which would greatly exacerbate the present situation by providing a far greater influx of radioactive pollutants into the environment and the food chain than those which are currently still finding their way into the environment.

Gordon Edwards, President
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
www.ccnr.org

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The Nuclear Olympics: Crisis and Opportunity in Tokyo's Election

[ http://akiomatsumura.com/2014/01/the-nu ... ction.html ]

by Akio Matsumura, blog of January 15, 2014 http://akiomatsumura.com

Since the Fukushima accident, I have presented the opinions of several eminent scientists on the Fukushima disaster and we have received many insightful responses from other experts in many fields. Many thanks to our friends for constantly translating this work into French, Spanish, Japanese, and German - hard work that brought in thousands of new readers. Our joint efforts have gained a high level of international credibility and helped bring to these issues the urgent attention they deserve.

Over these past three years I have begun to understand nuclear power and how its heavy risks -- 10,000 years of environmental damage -- are beyond what most are willing to accept as reasonable.

Next month the Japanese people have an opportunity to question Fukushima's safety again. A special election for the governor of Tokyo will take place February 9, an election the entire world will watch and comment on, and one which includes serious discussion of energy. Candidates have already declared themselves for or against nuclear power.

Why is a gubernatorial election of international importance? The honor and responsibility of hosting the 2020 Summer Olympic Games.

Over the next weeks, as election debates revisit the question of the ongoing crisis at Fukushima and nuclear power's safety, it is useful to review the lessons learned from the March 2011 and the disaster that ensued.

1. We have arrived at a very basic realization: every potentially dangerous machine should have an emergency "off" switch that shuts everything down completely -- but nuclear power reactors don't have one, because radioactivity cannot be shut off and therefore the irradiated nuclear fuel will continue to produce dangerous amounts of heat for many years after the plant's shutdown.

2. While nuclear power plants are generating electricity, they are also mass-producing enormous quantities of radioactive poisons that remain dangerous for centuries after the plant has been permanently shut down � poisons capable of contaminating food and water supplies long after they have been released to the environment.

3. Water used to cool a damaged reactor core becomes radioactively contaminated, and as the cooling must continue for years the volume of contaminated water grows very large and is difficult to keep out of the environment; this is especially true of subterranean waters

4. We have no radioactive waste repository in Japan where irradiated nuclear fuel can be safely isolated from the environment for 100,000 years, nor do we have an interim radioactive waste repository for the temporary safe storage of these nuclear wastes for one hundred to two hundred years.

5. Japan cannot complete the decommissioning and removal of the radioactive cores of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plants for at least 50 years, during which time radioactivity may continue to be emitted into the atmosphere, the soil, and the groundwater, while contaminated water will continue to flow into the Pacific Ocean.

6. Because nuclear power plants raise national security issues, governments try to hide the internal workings of these plants from public attention, including failures and episodes of mismanagement that could compromise public safety.

7. Since the medical effects of radiation exposure such as the appearance of thyroid disorders, cancers, leukemia, and damage to the gene pool will take several years or decades to become apparent, society will experience a gradually flowering crop of radiation-induced illnesses.

8. Exporting our nuclear power technology to developing countries can increase the risk of more uncontrolled nuclear disasters from this immature technology not only from accidental causes but as a result of conventional warfare or terrorist attack in politically unstable regions.

9. Every nuclear reactor also produces a man-made element called plutonium, which is the primary nuclear explosive material used in the world's arsenal of nuclear weapons, and which will remain available for tens of thousands of years after the last reactor has been shut down.
These nine truths are easily digested here, but operators, bureaucrats, and many journalists have let them sit shrouded in mystery for the past three years. . . . (SNIP)

[Regarding the Tokyo Summer Olympics of 2020:]

. . . The foremost concern for the IOC [International Olympic Committee] and Japan during the bidding process was safety: what impact will Fukushima and its radiation have on athletes and spectators? Japan satisfied the IOC's qualms. The IOC president Jacques Rogge said to Japan, "You have described yourself as a safe pair of hands." The information coming from Fukushima should have led to a different conclusion.

The best way to address Fukushima as a safety threat to the Olympic Games will be when the 'safe hands' include those of Japan, the IOC, and international scientific and engineering experts. It will be this concerned consortium that will assess and confirm that everything that can be done to mitigate the threat from Fukushima has been identified and that appropriate and timely action has been taken. . . . (SNIP)